Tree Transformation

The season is changing in Vermont.  We are color musing as we drive through the countryside admiring the transformation in our green mountains.

  This apple tree has lived a good many years, maybe almost 100, but its transformation is greater than just in color.  I took this after son Jonah had cut some of the branches over the porch roof, but so many branches were twisted in the electrical lines.  How had we not noticed before?  Then the discovery of rot deep within the base....the tree had to come down and Jonah was ready for the challenge.

I was amazed to witness my son take on the tree, sitting within it, cutting hand holds so he could climb and cut, strapping himself to the tree with climbing ropes.  He devised a rope situation that had Bruce and me pulling on ropes while he cut so the logs would not land on the roof or into the house.  Yes, challenges!

When I got home on Sunday, I viewed the change from the lot below the house.  What a change!  The house looks so exposed.  I am thinking of the north wind chilling the porch, but also the setting sun will fall upon it also.  New plantings also in order.  I don't quite know why such a tall piece was left...sculpture perhaps.

Tools of the trade....more cutting to be continued.

Here is the crew of Sunday.  Jonah sits on the right sporting his Watchpoets shirt, tired but pleased.  Twig and Jonah are sitting on a carved bench which will probably live where it is as there is a lot of weight involved.

These are the trees I witnessed as I drove home from a friend's house where I had helped her hang paintings in her new home to celebrate her birthday.  I missed the excitement of the large trunks being cut, some of the limbs coming down, but sometimes it is better to be away when such transformation is taking place....I wish I had a wood stove to burn the apple, but back yard fires will have to do.